


heart wrapped in clover and you

by ninemoons42



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Books, Charles Is a Darling, Erik is lovely, Established Relationship, Inspired by Music, M/M, Old Dudes in Love, Older Characters, Slow Dancing, Telepathy, sleep cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 01:39:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They fall asleep to each other, and wake up to music and memories and golden sunlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heart wrapped in clover and you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pocky_slash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/gifts).



> Because we need more old dudes in love fic in this world.
> 
> Title taken from [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1uunRdQ61M).

Another night, Charles thinks, fond and amused and rueful all at once, another opportunity lost, and he wonders if he ought to start thinking about whether Erik is doing this on purpose or not.

Charles crosses the living room on silent feet - a skill he’s long since perfected in the years and decades of sharing these rooms with Erik - and draws the curtains closed against the city lights and their glitter and flash. Against the millions of minds with their whirling thoughts outside these walls, outside this building. Against the miles of metal both immobile and on the move, on the ground and in the air and everywhere in between.

When that’s done, he looks over at the man on the couch, on his - their - couch, and sends a gentle caress of a thought in his direction: nothing so intrusive or overt as to wake him up, of course, because Charles doesn’t really get many chances to just look at Erik, and see him like this.

In sleep, Erik is still, and strange, and beautiful. The muted lights from within this house and from without cast strange colors and shadows on his face, and Charles luxuriates in just _looking_ : here are the scars and the lines, here is the hair that has long since gone silver, here are all the signs of a life. It is not really up to Charles or to anyone else to determine whether Erik’s is a life lived well, or with purpose, or to his satisfaction - that is a thought for Erik alone to think about, and Charles perhaps has the privilege of being able to listen in to that thought, if Erik lets him.

Erik is still holding on to the book that he must have been reading when he dozed off, and Charles tilts his head to look at it - familiar red-leather binding, a specific pattern of cracks on what is visible of the spine, and when he stoops cautiously closer to look at Erik’s pages he can see the title, and it makes him smile.

Of course Erik has managed to make it back to _Le Comte de Monte-Cristo_ , and of course he’s reading the edition that Charles gave him for a long-ago anniversary. In Erik’s hands the book seems smaller, but that is only because Erik seems to loom large in the world, has always been a powerful force in it, even when his abilities are taken out of the equation. Erik draws eyes in any crowd, and when he chooses to take a stand on something he believes in he does not have to say a word to make his point, to make people listen.

Charles spends a few more minutes smiling down at Erik, and when he’s looked his fill he goes to get a blanket from their bedroom. He is very conscious of his hands as he drapes the dark blue wool over Erik’s chest and shoulders.

Erik looks warm, after; looks like he’s safe.

Greatly daring, Charles brushes a kiss to Erik’s brow. _Good night._

He curls up in the nearest armchair with another blanket and the mp3 player that Kitty and Ororo had given him on his most recent birthday, and presses Play.

The sweet smoky song that filters into his thoughts leaves him breathless with gentle surprise, calls a familiar memory back to the surface: Etta James, a languid melody, a crisp autumn night of shared scarves, a flask of excellent plum schnapps, happy voices cheerfully bickering on the other side of the Westchester mansion. He remembers Erik making fun for not bothering to wrap his present - but the jibes had fallen silent the moment he’d tilted the title into the light for Erik to see.

He thinks about Erik’s present to him, and knows that it is still in this house, the house that they have retired to, after the years of butting heads with the world at large, after the years of famine and the years of victory. After separation and reunion and secret meetings. 

For a moment, Charles pries his eyes open, and looks at the mantelpiece, and the city lights cast colored shadows over the two candlesticks in well-polished steel: heavy, beautiful, sparsely decorated. A present for a home, Erik had called it. Now they are here and they are the focus of the room, just as Charles has always intended.

Between one breath and the next of contemplating flickering candlelight, Charles falls suddenly into dreams: a far-off voice humming a well-known song. 

///

He wakes up to golden morning sunlight and to Erik muttering to himself, his thoughts nudging against Charles’s, pausing to acknowledge his presence and then dropping back into their distracted round.

 _Erik,_ Charles thinks, blinking in confusion.

 _Looking for something,_ Erik sends back, even as he gets to his knees to peer into their shelves and their boxes. “The tea should still be warm. Go, eat your breakfast, let me get on with this.”

“This being?” Charles stands well out of Erik’s way, but stands within arm’s length just the same, quiet amusement filtering into the air between them.

“I’ll tell you if I manage to find it,” Erik says, but he does straighten up and kiss Charles on the cheek. He smells like black coffee and orange marmalade, and Charles grins and pulls him back in so he can kiss the tip of Erik’s nose, and he makes good his escape while Erik sputters and eventually gets back to his rummaging.

Just to be helpful, Charles eats his share of breakfast and then loads the dishwasher and checks the refrigerator for any missing supplies - but he stops in his tracks when he hears something scratching, a faintly musical hiss.

And then: 

_At last_  
 _My love has come along_  
 _My lonely days are over_  
 _And life is like a song_   
_Ooohh yeah_

It is a miracle that he doesn’t drop the milk carton in his hurry, and he very nearly runs through the rooms - to the sight of Erik with his hands in his pockets, to the contemplative look on Erik’s face, to Erik standing in a patch of sunlight as a record player bends itself back into proper working order.

“One moment,” Erik says, and Charles watches him tilt his head and squint, briefly, and the next time Erik gestures the tone arm moves smoothly into place.

When Erik smiles, Charles goes to him, tucking himself under one of Erik’s arms. He is strangely breathless as Etta’s voice soars into the morning once again, sweet yearning, honeyed fulfillment.

He doesn’t know which one of them turns completely toward the other, and stops caring as soon as Erik takes both of his hands, winds them around his own neck, and starts the two of them moving, tracing out a slow circle on the sunlit carpet.


End file.
